


Such are the inlets of the mind

by middlemarch



Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Marriage, Mother-Son Relationship, Nature, Nightmares, Ocean, Romance, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: If he had not woken, would she had said anything of it to him?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mmmuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmuse/gifts).



It was late and the moon was so high in the sky the light was diffuse, cool and soft across the floorboards, the rumpled coverlet; Ross knew the fields would be lit almost as if it were day and no smugglers would risk the coast. It was not the brightness that had woken him though. He was unsure for a moment what had startled him from his sleep abruptly, a familiar confusion left behind in its place. He thought, perhaps the baby but there was no escalating cry, sharp and importunate, eager to suckle and then to rest his hand against his mother’s breastbone in a claim Ross could not dispute. The room was quiet and Ross felt the dozy drag of his fatigue begin to work through him again when his alarum returned.

It was Demelza, whimpering in her sleep. She was turned away from him and only a portion of her profile was visible to him, her night-plait loose at the base of her skull. He could forget during the day how slight she was, how finely shaped beneath the practical petticoats and bodice than even Verity would have refused to wear. The sound she made was low, choked, as if something hurt her very much and she could not bear to contain herself. He shifted, laid a hand on her hip intending to pull her closer to him, to settle her without words when he heard her voice.

“No, no…not him, Ross, no, ‘tisn’t true,” she cried and it was at utter lack of anger that he would expect from her when confronting a falsehood that made him shake her, the unmistakable hopelessness than went beyond any tears.

“Demelza, wake up,” he said firmly, tightening his grasp on her hip, feeling how his fingers wanted to curve around the bone. “Wake up,” he repeated and she did, opening eyes that must have been blue but which looked the clearest grey, like a set of moonstones his mother had once had in a velvet-lined case.

“Oh,” she said. He thought she would be relieved, perhaps throw her arms around him or push a lock of hair back from his forehead. She did none of it, only stared at him.

“What’s troubling you?” he asked, waiting for her to respond. When she said nothing, he added, “Was it a nightmare? They say it helps to tell them, takes the sting away.”

“A dream,” she said. It sounded more like a question than an assertion.

“You had a bad dream,” he repeated, prompting her to elaborate.

“A terrible dream,” she replied. Ross moved his hand from her hip to her waist, let her feel the heat of his palm against her belly.

“I dreamt it was you lost, not Francis, they came to me and told me you’d died, drowned in the mine. That they’d never find you,” she explained. They’d laid Francis to rest a fortnight ago and Ross still could not believe his cousin was not simply out on a ride, would not turn up at Nampara with some idea for Wheal Grace or a memory of their childhood he’d recalled while cantering through the woods. Demelza had not known Francis as well, as long and Ross had not thought his death could hurt her as much. He hadn’t imagined what the loss could mean to her, suggest to a wife who’d learned not to confide in her husband.

“It’s not real, Demelza. It never could be,” he said. It was too late to try and be clever. He’d have to be honest.

“How can you say it, Ross?” she asked, keeping her voice pitched low enough the baby would not awaken before time.

“I’ve the luck of the devil, everyone says it, but it’s not only that. Francis never learned to swim but I did, before I was five years old even, in the river and the sea. I spent hours in the cove, searching for any spilled treasure, for shells, likely pieces of driftwood for carving. I always wanted to make a spear for fishing,” he said, trying to lull her as he remembered how it had been. The sand beneath his feet had been more comfortable than the Turkey carpet in the sitting room, a certain outcropping of stones his perch and refuge. He never felt as refreshed as after bathing in the ocean, feeling the power around him and knowing he had some skill to match it. He preferred the sea but the stream would do when he was tired and over-heated, though he did not like the muddy bottom, the cranky croaking of the disturbed frogs.

“Your mother didn’t mind?” Demelza said and he chuckled.

“Mind? She sent me there, said I must be a selkie come ashore and to give her some peace. Jud taught me, he wasn’t always drunk then, and he’d catch some fish for us maybe, cook them right there. So, you needn’t worry about that,” he said. He had moved closer to her as she had not rolled back towards him as he’d hoped, but now she turned her face into his neck. She was too tense yet to fall back to sleep, but less distressed.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she admitted. The words touched his skin as she spoke and he had a vision of her in widow’s black, how her fair face would be like an ivory Madonna, how she would face the headwinds from the cliffs.

“You would…for him,” Ross said, knowing it was the truth and she would understand it. “But you won’t need to. I’ve no intention of leaving you.”

“Oh, Ross. As if your intentions are all that count! As if you will remember this when the next chance presents itself,” she said. She did not move away from him but she sighed and the sound cut him as none of her others had done, nor even her soft cries or tears. She had not called him a fool but she had meant it, nor a liar, but she meant that too. She had not called him her love so he would have to use the word himself.

“I’ll remember, love. And if you think I’ve forgotten, remind me,” he answered, earnest as he rarely was. She drew back, just a little and he thought he could kiss her now, another vow on those sweet, parted lips and then she yawned.

“So tired, forgive me. He’ll want to nurse soon,” she said. Ross smiled into the night. Her dream must have receded enough, his explanation and promise adequate, at least until the dawn.

“Go to sleep then. I’ll fetch him when he cries, stay abed,” he said. She moved, nestled closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes against the moonlight. If she woke again in despair, she was close enough to embrace, to lick the cries from her lips. She would know he was there, with her, and that he wanted to be; he would stroke her as he had the waves and taste the salt of her sweat, of her rapture.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift-fic for mmmuse for her donation to the Sierra Club. I had another Romelza excursion in mind, so if anyone wants that to come to light, you've only got to donate through the link on my Tumblr where I'm jomiddlemarch.
> 
> The title to this is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
